I have taken the time to chat with one of the classroom teachers (remember that I bring students from classes throughout the school together).  This teacher has 1 student involved as a mentor and three as buddies. 

HER RESPONSE HAS BEEN SO AFFIRMING . . .

She made note of the following:

• That all of the buddies (who had been identified as reluctant readers) are finding any opportunity that they can to read – and to have a text available to read.
• That the one student who stated that he loves Bloggers because he hates reading in the class – is feeling positive about reading  in general – which is a big step from where he had been.
• She believes that she has seen considerable gains in their ability to write reports (the writing focus of the term) – more so than students in her class not involved in the bloggers.  She sees that while the focus is on reading, they have been thinking carefully about the writing process and writing for an audience.

My discussion with her was incidental, however developed into quite an indepth talk about the programme.  My initial reason for initiating the discussion was in planning for what the bloggers might look like next term – will I keep on the same mentors and buddies?  Will I bring on more buddies?  Can the buddies operate like this, but back in their classrooms?  My concern being that while the students are engaged twice a week in ‘Reading Conversations’ they are also being pulled from directed and focused classroom teaching sessions that delve much deeper than this programme does.  This teacher sees the programme as complementary to classroom reading sessions and as a great incentive for those who are on it.  In summary she would see it as beneficial for her students to continue on a programme similar to that running.  I need to make the time to have similar conversations with other teachers of students in the group.